According to Wikipedia ("Brown Rat") it takes eight weeks from birth to first litter with very high infant mortality under steady state conditions. They are r-strategists, if you believe in that distinction. We are now starting to see grandchildren of infant rats born at the end of the storm. If population dropped we can't expect it to stay dropped.

There is only one person who can deal with the scourge of the NY rats.

That man's name is Willem... Willem Dafoe.

"So my friend was working in this lunch counter, it was a pretty high class place, and Willem Dafoe was there, eating at the counter, and all of a sudden this rat walks past, just right up on the counter, this rat starts walking past, and Willem Dafoe just grabbed something and killed it. BAM! He just killed this rat. It was very in-character for him, you know?" http://www.matthewcharlesdavis.com/20​08/06/18/rat-story-with- willem-da foe/

Chuck Norris? Pussy. Willem Dafoe kills rats without blinking and eye and goes right back to lunch.

Rats are incredibly resilient and clever, and they have shown signs of altruism in lab tests. I expect that they were better prepared for flooding than the humans or the city. No doubt, many drowned because they were trapped and couldn't swim forever, but most would survive. They will never be in short supply as long as Man survives.

Rats do live by smell. One of the most annoying things about rats is they have weak bladders and piddle a lot, but this may be adaptive since they lay down trails this way. Owls can see the trails of urine left by rats, moles, etc., because they have ultra-violet vision. Presumably the pay-off of using smell the way humans use road signs, etc., is greater than the loses to predators with a good sense of smell or UV or IR night-vision.

A fun and informative book on rats is Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett. Meant for young adults, it is just as readable for adults as his main line Discworld series. Although it is fantasy, he does his reseach and includes many interesting facts, such as the Rat King, and the rat bounty fraud.

I have a great deal of love and respect for rats, but they're dead if they invade my territory. They piddle everywhere!

Completely average in size, really. The problem is that to a lot of lifelong city dwellers, "a rat" is any animal that's outside and not on a leash (including raccoons, possums, and squirrels) and "a roach" is any insect that isn't flying and isn't a spider.

I "saved" a woman from "the biggest rat she'd ever seen!!" this past fall - a baffled blonde raccoon kit sitting in the grass.

How about people are greatly over exaggerating just how much of the subway was flooded? Most of the flooding was in the tunnels under the East River; that only station I'm aware of that was completely flooded was South Ferry (which needs to be rebuilt).

I recently met someone in their mid-20s who thought mice were just baby rats. She literally had no idea that they were different animals. How does someone live their entire life in a major city, reach adulthood, and not learn that?

louiedog:I recently met someone in their mid-20s who thought mice were just baby rats. She literally had no idea that they were different animals. How does someone live their entire life in a major city, reach adulthood, and not learn that?

Used to a see a giant rat amongst the regular rats around the family farm. It nearly twice the size of the others, had reddish fure. Eventually it was caught in a trap and was indeed a rat. But it was very big and fearless.

NoSugarAdded:louiedog: I recently met someone in their mid-20s who thought mice were just baby rats. She literally had no idea that they were different animals. How does someone live their entire life in a major city, reach adulthood, and not learn that?

It's called money.

No, just stupid, which isn't exclusive to money. I've heard the same thing from a dozen daft people over the years.

Also a dude who thought that miniature poodles grew up to be standard poodles, and that he didn't see more standard poodles around because people had them put to sleep when they got too big, and bought new puppies.